A. M. Joy. On the day that former First Lady Barbara Bush was laid to rest at a memorial where former president s and the current First Lady Melania Trump were present, melania lighting up the internet with a happy smile, looking happier than weve possibly ever seen her, donald trump golfed for three and a half hours at his course in florida before watching the funeral on the tv from what he very much wants to you call his southern white house. Trump apparently took some time to do other things he enjoys. He trashed New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman in a twitter tirade. He tweeted that he didnt know who mr. Magoo is, and then he went off james comey for revealing explosive details about the runup to his firing. You know, the usual. Which is to say the comey drama, the cohen drama, the failing New York Times, its all getting to donald trump. And if hes scared, maybe theres a reason why. Joining me, coauthor of one nation after trump. Clint watts, National Security analyst and author of messing with the enemy. Thank you all for being here. Ill start here at the table. Donald trump, e. J. , seems to be particularly irritated. I dont think hes upset he didnt go to the funeral. He and the bushes didnt have the greatest relationship and he said out of respect, he wouldnt go. What did you make of this all over the place agitated trump yesterday . We should remark on the fact that the family of the former president did not really want the current president down there. Thats a remarkable thing all by itself. But i think the raid on cohens office has really disturbed, if not unhinged him, because the amount of information that could be there, not only that bears very directly on what his role was, if any, in russian meddling in our election, but also on his whole business empire, on all of these personal relationships, charges of abuse, those were all there, and the reason he was so upset with Maggie Habermans story, and it was really good for maggie, i love maggie, and i was glad to see trump attack her because its good for her, is that hes really worried cohen may turn on him. Its been day after day after day of stories that he could start cooperating with mueller. That would be a nightmare for donald trump, and i think thats yoi dont know if a nightmare i guess thats whats waking him up at night. For those who didnt read the story, pulitzer prizeawarded New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote about the possibility that cohen may not be there for trump. The two gentlemen who starred on pbs wrote an article about what they speculated could bring down donald trump, and of course they are the ones who hired christopher steele, the former fbi agent. They said, the most Significant Recent Development involving the president may be that the special Counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed Trump OrganizationBusiness Records as part of his inquiry into russian interference in the president ial election. Those documents and records recently seized by the fbi from the president s personal lawyer might answer a question raised by the president s critics. He came back with lots of foreign money. Is that where the real peril lies for him . I think thats why you see the president react so strongly and talk about his version of red lines. Mostly the president s lines, he focuses on his businesses. He says dont go there because he knows its a vulnerability. The biggest risk to the president has always been other crimes with regard to the investigation. Its these side issues that pop up that can really take him down much more than the collusion and even obstruction angles of this. Just a little about Michael Cohen that i thought was interesting. A friend sent this to me this morning. This is a Washington Post piece about when Michael Cohen ran for the city council in new york, cohen was drawn to politics first as a democrat volunteering for the 1998 president ial campaign of michael do y dukakis, and then losing a 2003 bid for city council. As for the other new york city accomplishments, cohen wrote that among his achievemented, he had hectored a local coffee shop into better managing its trash. Michael cohen has said he would go to prison for donald trump. Whats the state of that relationship . Since he met Michael Cohen, he pretty much has treated him Like National garbage. Michael cohen has been extremely loyal to the president. If you walk into his office on 30 rock, he has a shrine to the president. He has photographs with the president. He very much looks up to and borderlines idolizes trump. He has gotten mainly nothing. The president did not make a place for him in the administration, and whether or not cohen recents thsents that, does, hes hidden that very, very well. Now its a question of whether cohen gets his revenge, so to speak, because he holds all the cords where the president at one point did hold all the leverage over Michael Cohen because he employed him and cohen was extremely loyal to the president. Now its cohen who holds all the Business Records that were taken in this fbi raid. He knows pretty much everything about the deals that were struck with the Trump Organization in places like panama, kazakhstan, all these places that could have been corrupt and therefore trump in a lot of legal peril. Cohen has everything in his pocket right now, and trump, its really interesting, seemed to yesterday say if cohen did flip on him, he said he wasnt sure that he would, but if he did, it would be all stories and lies, anything that cohen had to say, because of course the special counsel or the Southern District of new york would be placing pressure on him and no one wants to go to prison. He was sort of laying the groundwork to say, if cohen does start talking, none of it will be true. The president wanted the prestige of manhattan to respect him, and now it does seem like all of trumps new York Business associations and just his associations generally are really coming back to haunt him. Maggie haberman trolling a little bit. He always said trump has been afraid of roger stone for years. Hes about Michael Cohen who could flip on him. Is it does feel like the walls could be closing in. Definitely, and i think trump was just focused on getting into this office, but he wasnt thinking about all the responsibilities that come with the job of being the president of the United States, and i feel like his presidency so far at the end of Donald Trumps presidency, whenever that might be, we might all be unofficial lawyers. Its all like law school 101. Hes not only giving us the legal system but the checks and balances on american political power and how strong theyre going to hold up. And one thing i really want to quickly talk about is that if the secret, sealed indictment really does exist, i just want to say i have so much anxiety about what trump will do with mueller, but if the secret indictment does really exist, one thing is clear, we dont need to worry about mueller. Even if he is fired, this investigation is going to go on. For those who are not caught up on that issue, let me read a little bit from a very provocative saturday piece in politico in which they said the following. Fortunately, while he retains his position, mueller has a powerful tool at his disposal, the sealed or secret indictment. If mueller indeed determines he has a strong case against trump, a secret indictment returned by a grand jury will help protect the integrity of his investigation, even if he is fired, while also avoiding the risk of provoking trump to try to further impede the probe. One other little piece from that politico article, for those who havent read it yet, if trump were to fire mueller, the already sealed indictment would outlast muellers tenure. It can only be opened by a judge, which means trump cannot relieve himself of the headache by simply firing mueller. T the idea that you have an fbi open investigation of multiple trump people, but right now we know trump is considered not a target but a subject of the investigation. Could you foresee a time when we dont know he shifts to being a target and the grand jury decides, yeah, we see crimes here by the president of the United States, unseal the indictment. That could be a problem because you dont know what the other witnesses in the investigation could be saying. The other thing thats interesting, theyve asked for interviews with the president. The president hasnt exactly agreed to it yet. If they cant verify certain information or get a counterpoint, they might move in that direction because hes not providing that information. One thing to remember in all of this is weve seen sealed indictments show up there before, we dont know whats happening, and then months later weve seen subjects come out in the open and into the public. Its possible right now there could be many people or many other sources out there that have already been indicted or under seal of indictment and dont know it. I think whats important about this is what the massacre under nixon showed us is that the president can try to stop a train like this, but he cant succeed. Its very hard. Tl there is a lot of stuff on the record. There are a lot of people investigating this. And i think if he ever did fire mueller or rosenstein, there would first be an extraordinary outpouring, not from republicans who are still trying to protect trump, but from lots of other people and a few republicans, but there is too much that has already gone on for trump to completely stop this in its tracks. And natasha, one of the outcries might be a quiet one. It might be Jeff Sessions leaving. He gets to pursue integration policies, doing what hes always wanted to, going after weed, he seems to have an issue with marijuana. Hes pursuing all this stuff with gusto, but yet sessions has indicated that if rose stein were fired, it would prompt him to have to leave. That one person who pushes a mop at justice before they find someone to end the mueller probe, how far in your reporting are you hearing this could go . Would trump pardon himself . What are they contemplating in the white house at this point . I genuinely wonder whether or not sessions would actually resign if Rod Rosenstein was fired. It was a very easy thing for sessions to say in his phone call with don mcgahn, the white house counsel, a couple weeks ago or last week. But sessions has a lot of leverage right now and ive often written about this curious case in which sessions has really provoked the ire of donald trump, arguably more than anyone in the last year, but yet he continues to hold his job. Weve seen that trump is very loose when it comes to firing cabinet officials but sessions has managed to stay on, and a big part of that is its just political. Sessions has a lot of support among republicans and firing him would really be to the detriment of trump support among the base. There is also this question of if Rod Rosenstein is fired, who is going to fire bob mueller, and that is an open question, whether or not anyone is actually going to take the heat like rod did when like rosenstein did when he wrote that letter to fire jim comey, that was a very controversial move. Whether or not anyone wants to be in that position is really, really unlikely. Tick, tick, tick, tick. This just gets more weird and interesting as time goes on. We even mentioned giuliani joining the team. Well get to that another day. And my pen broke, thats how exciting it is. I broke my pen writing notes. Its giulianis fault. I always blame giuliani. Happy sunday to all of you. Thank you. Coming up on a. M. Joy, one of the worlds most tempestuous leaders is about to meet with one of the most notorious people to try to work out a deal. Theyre handing us more than mail theyre handing us their business and while we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country, we never forget. That your business is our business the United States postal service. Priority you when you said youe, sir. Were at the doctor, but your shirt says you were at a steakhouse. Thats when you know its halfwashed. Add downy odor protect with 24hour odor protection. Downy and its done. We use our phones the same way these days. So why do we pay to have a phone connected when were already paying for internet . Shouldnt it all just be one thing . Thats why Xfinity Mobile comes with your internet. You can get up to 5 lines of talk and text included at no extra cost. So all you pay for is data. See how you could save 400 or more a year. And get 200 back when you sign up for Xfinity Mobile and add a new line of unlimited. Xfinity mobile. Its a new kind of network designed to save you money. Click, call or visit an xfinity store today. Go and by the way, im not afraid of putin. I dont know putin, ive never met putin. I respect putin. Hes a strong leader, i can tell you that, unlike what we have. Saddam hussain was a bad guy, right . He was a bad guy, really bad guy. But you know what he did well . He killed terrorists. He did that so good. You look at north korea, this guy is like a maniac, okay . And you have to give him credit. How many young guys, he was like 26 or 25 when his father died, takes over these tough generals. Its Pretty Amazing when you think about it. I dont know, dictators and their sons . President trump, as he gets ready to meet with the north Korean Leader in the next few weeks, what could possibly go wrong . Glenda blair, the author of the trumps the history of the trump family. You wrote a definitive book of the whole family going back to Donald Trumps grandfather, and he does seem to have a penchant, an affinity, lets say, for strong men. Erdogan in turkey, Vladimir Putin. He seems to be drawn to people like that. He is either talking about them reverentially or mocking them. He used to call kim jongun rocket man. Here is trump talking about a few countries where he thinks somehow his personality will help him get along with people like that. I will get along, i think, with putin, and i will get along with others, and we will have a much more stable stable world. Now, at the same time, i want to be able because i think its very important to get along with russia, to get along with china, to get along with vietnam, to get along with lots of countries. Its a big country, its a nuclear country. Its a country we should get along with, and i think we will eventually get along with russia. One more cut for you. This is donald trump sort of channelling what he believes is his, i guess, superpower. Nobody knows the system better than me. Which is why i alone can fix it. Can you explain to me, what is it about Donald Trumps sort of affinity for the strong man character . Of the many ways people can describe donald trump, always to me if you have to get one word, its salesman. Performer, salesman. Hes always looking for what people want to hear. And for his target audience, american voters, what they want to hear is that he can protect them, so hes pushing the idea that theres strong men all over the world and that hes a strong guy, too, that hes as tough as they are. And i think that thats that he can stand up to them in any arena. It goes back to, in his own personal history, his father urged the boys in his family to be killers, to always win, to always come out on top, not to stop at anything, and throughout his career, trump has gone for whoever the strongest person was in the room, gone straight to that person and shown that person that he could best that person. You know, john mclaughlin, when i talk to friends from outside the United States, one of the things they will say to me a lot, especially if theyre from the middle east and that part of the world, donald trump is sort of understandable to people in those kinds of countries, autocratic countries, because he in personality is very similar to those autocratic leaders. Hes very much like them than he is what the rest of the world sees as the typical american president. Do you think thats fair to say . I think thats fair to say, joy. Of course, the problem is he lives in a Democratic Society that doesnt quite mirror the societies those authoritarians live in. For me the texts to study are his tweets and what psychologists say about narcissistic personalities. And i see a parallelism there. In all of his tweets, hes eager to take credit for anything that appears to be successful, and when psychologists, and im not one but i read what they write, when at the talk about the nine characteristics of a narcissistic personality, very high on that list is a belief that you are special, that you are unique, that you can do things that no one else can do. Well, that sounds like donald trump to me. Thats exactly how he portrays himself. And that i alone can fix it is a depiction of that. Absolutely. You mentioned the tweets, john. I want to read a couple of them specifically on north korea. This is on friday about north korea announcing that it had suspended missile testing. And he writes, a message from kim jongun not calling him little rocket man anymore north korea will stop Nuclear Tests and launches of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Also will shut down a Nuclear Test Site in the countrys northern side to prove the vow to suspend Nuclear Tests. Probable cau progress being made for all. And in another one, north korea has agreed to suspend all Nuclear Tests and close up the a